- Location
- Wasatch Range
The Geolocational Privacy and Surveillance Act (H.R. 1312), introduced in the House by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) and in the Senate by lawmakers Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) and Mark Kirk (R-Illinois), has gained wide support from the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who say the bills are very strong and, if passed, would finally bring legislation up to date with the invasive use of new technologies.
“Police routinely get people’s location information with little judicial oversight because Congress has never defined the appropriate checks and balances,” said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel in the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office in a statement. “Under the GPS Act, all that would change. Police would need to convince a judge that a person is likely engaging in criminal activity before accessing and monitoring someone’s location data. Innocent people shouldn’t have to sacrifice their privacy in order to have a cellphone.”
The bills contain some exceptions for national security cases and emergency circumstances, and would also allow parents to use tracking with children.
The bills are aimed at closing loopholes left last year by a Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Jones, which ruled that attaching a GPS device to a vehicle constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment. The decision stopped short of requiring agents to obtain a warrant for GPS devices, however, and also bypassed the issue of whether warrants should be required to obtain geolocation information collected by service providers from smartphones and car-tracking systems like OnStar.
“Although Jones was a step in the right direction, the Department of Justice is still arguing in court that they do not need a warrant to track someone’s movements using GPS devices or technology. This highlights the need for Congress to step in and provide clear and reasonable guidelines,” said Chaffetz.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/warrantless-gps-tracking/
“Police routinely get people’s location information with little judicial oversight because Congress has never defined the appropriate checks and balances,” said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel in the ACLU’s Washington Legislative Office in a statement. “Under the GPS Act, all that would change. Police would need to convince a judge that a person is likely engaging in criminal activity before accessing and monitoring someone’s location data. Innocent people shouldn’t have to sacrifice their privacy in order to have a cellphone.”
The bills contain some exceptions for national security cases and emergency circumstances, and would also allow parents to use tracking with children.
The bills are aimed at closing loopholes left last year by a Supreme Court decision in U.S. v. Jones, which ruled that attaching a GPS device to a vehicle constituted a search under the Fourth Amendment. The decision stopped short of requiring agents to obtain a warrant for GPS devices, however, and also bypassed the issue of whether warrants should be required to obtain geolocation information collected by service providers from smartphones and car-tracking systems like OnStar.
“Although Jones was a step in the right direction, the Department of Justice is still arguing in court that they do not need a warrant to track someone’s movements using GPS devices or technology. This highlights the need for Congress to step in and provide clear and reasonable guidelines,” said Chaffetz.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/03/warrantless-gps-tracking/
